National party

Business groups have welcomed the National Party's election policy on benefits but advocacy groups say there's cause for concern.

Under the policy, those on the DPB will have to work or train for fifteen hours a week, once their youngest child turns six, and people on sickness and invalid benefits who have been assessed as being able to work part-time.

"When the children are at school and not during the holidays, I think they should be doing something for themselves," says National leader John Key.

Long-term unemployed people will also have to re-apply for their benefits if National wins the election.

However the party's policy is not popular with some, including a 31-year-old solo mother on the DPB. The solo parent, who wants to remain anonymous, says National's proposals may prove to be too harsh. "It's putting so much strain on the families, and the parents. And you want to be able to be a good parent, you want to be able to be there for them when they come home from their day at school," she says.

Social Development Minister Ruth Dyson says the National policy will take New Zealand backwards. She says the approach is punitive and last time a similar approach was tried it resulted in an unacceptable rise in child poverty. A National-led government last introduced a controversial work for the dole scheme for sole parents and other beneficiaries in the late 1990s.

The Ministry of Social Development did a review of that scheme. It found many single parents wanted to enter the workforce and more of them did go off the benefit.

But there was not enough administrative support and parents had trouble finding childcare. Critics are concerned those problems could arise again. Some people's advocacy groups echo similar sentiments. "You want failure, you introduce work-test sanctions for DHB and the only people that will suffer are the children," says Paul Blair, Rotorua's People's Advocacy Centre.

There are also concerns that solo parents will just end up in low paid jobs. "By forcing out mothers into minimum wage labour so they can provide cheap labour for John Key's big business round table mates. They won't earn much more on their benefit...and the kids get inferior childcare and supervision," says Blair.

Despite drawing criticism from some advocacy groups, businesses say it's a way to create a productive labour market. Several business and employment groups have welcomed the policy, saying they support the principal of getting able-bodied people back into the workforce.

They say there is a demand for workers in retail, banking, and the hospitality sectors. "Even if employment is easing somewhat, retail always needs a large pool of people to keep it ticking over," John Albertson, Retailers' Association.

Meanwhile political scientist Therese Arseneau says National's policy will attract some voters and send other voters back to Labour. She says that National has finally adopted an election strategy suited to winning an MMP election. "It has softened its rhetoric, moved towards the centre on several key policy issues and challenged Labour for the crucial centrist swing vote. In 2008 National's strategy is intended to grow its vote primarily at Labour's expense," she says.

“National’s Employment and Workplace Relations Policy is a gift to employers wrapped in the language of 'reasonableness',” said Laila Harré, National Secretary of the National Distribution Union in response to the release of the policy today.

Parents look set to get more taxpayer-funded pay within the next few years after both major political parties yesterday welcomed a proposal to extend paid parental leave to a year.

The Families Commission has proposed a three-stage increase from the present 14 weeks' leave to six months initially, then nine months and finally 12 months by 2015.  The plan, which also includes higher pay rates, would increase the total cost of paid parental leave from $95 million a year at present to $450 million.

Labour Minister Ruth Dyson welcomed the report and said it was a Government priority "to ensure paid parental leave can be accessed by even more working parents".  A 10-year Government plan promised last year to "work towards parental leave provisions that support parents who wish to care for their children in their first year of life while taking a break from paid work".

Her National counterpart, Kate Wilkinson, whose party voted against paid parental leave when it was introduced in 2002, said National only opposed it when it excluded self-employed people, and the party now supported it.

The party's speaker on family affairs, Judith Collins, said she would take the Families Commission proposal to the National caucus.  "It would have to go to caucus and have the costings done and be weighed up against other initiatives, but I'm generally not against it," she said.  "As a working woman myself, I could seriously have done with paid parental leave when I had a little child."

Only the right-wing think-tank the Maxim Institute sounded a contrary note. Its policy manager, Alex Penk, acknowledged that new parents faced financial pressures but suggested they should call on support from extended family and friends rather than taxpayers.  "They are the ones that are closest to the people that need help," he said.  "If we place more responsibility for children within the family, not only is that going to help meet the financial challenges, but in the process it's going to strengthen those intergenerational ties within families."

The Families Commission says New Zealand's current 14 weeks of paid parental leave is less than in any other Western country except Australia and the United States, which do not have it at all. New Zealand's current 14 weeks' leave at the maximum rate of $391.28 a week pays $5478.

A Labour Department evaluation published in May found that 56 per cent of all mothers of babies born in 2004-05 were eligible for paid leave, and a further 6 per cent were self-employed and would have become eligible when the scheme was extended to the self-employed last year.  The other 38 per cent were not eligible because they were not in paid work (26 per cent), had not worked for the same employer for the six months before the baby's due date (7 per cent) or worked less than 10 hours a week (4 per cent).

The Families Commission recommends scrapping the need to work at least six hours a week and extending paid leave to any parent who has worked at least six months in the year before giving birth.  It proposes that 14 weeks' leave for mothers to support their health and breastfeeding, and another four weeks for fathers or the mother's partner to encourage them to help with child-rearing.

A benefit for baby

Baby Kees Hemana, 10 months, would still be at home with his mum if the Government already provided a year's paid parental leave.  Single mother Renee Hemana, 20, went back to work when Kees was just six months old because she could not afford to stay on the domestic purposes benefit. But she didn't really want to leave him until he was at least "a year, if not longer". She says he loves the five hours a day he spends at the Awhina Whanau early childhood centre in East Tamaki, but she misses him. "I miss out on how he's learning and how he's doing every day."

She was still breastfeeding him when she started working from 9am to 2pm at the Plunket Society's Counties-Manukau office, and at first she tried expressing milk and sending it with him to the childcare centre.  She pays $160 a week for childcare, but reckons she is still about $200 a week better off through working part-time with a reduced benefit than she would have been on the benefit alone.

The smugness of the National Party at present is positively nauseating. Three months of encouraging poll results and they are already arguing about the colour of the new drapes for Premier House. (Most, naturally, favour royal blue; some a light green; and there's even a staunch minority still holding out for a rich, ethnic brown.)

This overweening confidence is fed by the unceasing drumbeat of anti-government stories, negative cartoons, and wildly-hyped poll data hurled at them almost daily by elements within the news media. "One Party State!" - screamed a recent headline (although it was difficult to tell whether this was supposed to be a prediction, a description or a suggestion). The business community, prone to believing just about everything it reads in the newspapers - even its own propaganda - is now furiously advising itself on how best to "manage the interface" between business and government under the new regime.

All the usual suspects from the 1980s and 90s - along with a crop of up-and-coming acolytes from the country's leading businesses -gathered on Waiheke Island last week to discuss this "interface" at the Business Roundtable's annual "Dunes Symposium". The two Rogers (Douglas and Kerr) were present to deliver their thoughts on "Business Leadership in Public Policy" - an interesting choice of subject for a former politician and a one-time civil servant. As one of the prime movers of the 1980s reforms was later heard to mutter: if New Zealanders had waited for business to take the lead on public policy reform "we'd still be waiting to start".

Rod Deane - once affectionately known as "Dr Death" - was also in good form, discoursing upon "The State of the Nation". (Not good.) The star-turn of the symposium, however, was undoubtedly the new kid on the right-wing block - John Key. (Although his allocated speaking time of 45 minutes on "National's Economic Vision" did strike me as a trifle generous.) Not to worry. The National Party leader was received by these awestruck minions of Mammon with such reverence that the journalists present could have been forgiven for thinking he had actually walked to Waiheke Island. But, not everyone is ready to hail Key as New Zealand's messiah.

More than a few (including the Labour blogger, Jordan Carter, to whom I am indebted for the following quotations) have noted the leader of the opposition's startling revisions of his own - and his party's - stance on the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Responding to visiting left-wing British MP George Galloway's charge that a National government would be more likely to lead New Zealand into a conflict in the Middle East - Mr Key declared: "(We've) made it quite clear we won't be going to Iraq, we wouldn't have sent troops to Iraq. National did support the Coalition of the Willing's right to send troops, but that's because we are of the view that every country is entitled to take its own actions, but we certainly won't be going."

On March 11, 2003, however, the Rodney Times reported that: "New Zealand should support its allies first and the United Nations second, says National MP John Key. `Any relationship with the United States or Britain has to take precedence over the United Nations.'... He would be prepared to commit any support requested by the United States for a war against Iraq, including SAS and combat troops. `New Zealand should be prepared to fight for the values it believes in."'

At the Dunes Symposium dinner on Thursday night, the keynote speaker, Jonathan Ling, chief executive of Fletcher Building, emphasised the crucial importance of getting the big leadership decisions right. But the statements quoted above expose Key as a leader who made the wrong call on one of the biggest decisions any prime minister is ever likely to make: whether to commit our nation's troops to an illegal war of aggression. Even worse, he is now unwilling to acknowledge his error.

Applauded by New Zealand's business leaders and cheered to the echo by the National Party faithful Key may be - but he still has a long way to go before he's ready for the responsibilities of Premier House. National's redecorators should hold off buying those drapes for a while yet.

National Party leader John Key has admitted the involvement of frontbench MP Gerry Brownlee in a casino consultancy was "inappropriate" and a wake-up call for his caucus.

The Ilam MP has resigned as a director of New Zealand Casino Services, just a month after agreeing to go on the fledgling company's board.  The company, set up to advise casinos throughout New Zealand, is headed by Stephen Lyttelton and Peter Arbuckle, both former senior executives at the Christchurch Casino.

The pair resigned from the casino last month, alleging a series of problems that are now the subject of an inquiry by the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA).  Inquiries by The Press have revealed that the company's other director is another senior member of the National Party, wealthy Auckland businessman Peter Goodfellow.

Goodfellow, a former chairman of the Auckland Young Nationals, was re-elected to National's governing board of directors last year.  He is also a director of a host of prominent companies, including Sanfords, Cambridge Clothing and some finance companies.  The Press understands that New Zealand Casino Services is applying for a gaming licence.

Brownlee told The Press yesterday that he was embarrassed about his involvement and had joined the board of the company only as a favour to Lyttelton, who was a friend.

"I did it mainly as a favour to a friend," Brownlee said. "That is not very smart.  He initially talked about a company that would be an advisory-consultancy service to casino operators in New Zealand, and I thought, `Well, that's perfectly reasonable. There's nothing inappropriate about that'," Brownlee said.  But then as the various allegations came out, I started to get concerned about what sort of position I was in because the DIA is investigating Christchurch Casino and I needed to be in a position where I could respond to those things."

Brownlee said that once he had realised he had "got myself in the wrong space" he tendered his resignation.  "I'm taking a bit of a battering, with people saying, `What the hell are you involved for?' Those are all fair questions – far worse after the DIA report if I started making comments."  Brownlee said his involvement and that of Goodfellow was nothing to do with the National Party. "I'd be absolutely gutted if there was any view if this was a National Party deal. Absolutely not," he said.

Key said the saga had been "a worthy reminder for our caucus" about how careful MPs needed to be when managing their private commercial interests and their public roles.  Key said he had not told Brownlee to quit the directorship but believed he had made the right decision. "Obviously, he believes he's got himself in a slightly compromised position and I think he's taken the entirely appropriate course of action in resigning from the company."

Key said he was careful with his private sector interests.  "I have got rid of most of my New Zealand interests because I don't want a conflict and what interests I do have are blind-managed."  The Goodfellow situation was different, Key said. While Brownlee was a public figure, Goodfellow was a private individual "who happens to be a National Party director".

Internal Affairs Minister Rick Barker said yesterday that he hoped to have a report on allegations against the Christchurch Casino from the DIA next Friday. He expected to announce any decisions stemming from the report the following week.

Barker said he thought Brownlee was wise to have resigned his directorship.  "There is an inquiry currently being undertaken into the (casino) allegations and it is critical for the independence of the inquiry that it is not influenced by those involved in the political process," he said.

New Zealand business thinks it needs a change of government to unleash its potential. But all it needs is to change its own culture. The dysfunction starts right in the boardroom and seeps out from there.

That's the harsh but crucial truth demonstrated in spades in the latest New Zealand Herald Mood of the Boardroom annual survey. Once again, it showed what a miserable bunch of unambitious deniers run many of the country's businesses. They were very quick to blame everybody else, particularly the government, for their difficulties. They trotted out the usual long list of complaints about tax, regulation, labour shortages, exchange rate and policies. The poll results showed they were certain the government would lose the next election; and they believed they would then be better off under National.

But this view of the world is more an indictment of businesses than government. The business respondents were remarkably illogical, ill-informed and inconsistent in many of their opinions. Yes, for example, there are labour shortages. But, by and large, the solution lies with the companies themselves.   The best, most profitable companies will attract the staff they need because they can offer them interesting work, career progress and good pay. Refreshingly, the survey quoted chief executives of two such companies.

Of course, governments play vital roles in getting education, skills training, welfare, tax and immigration policies right to maximise the number and quality of people in the workforce.  But if business thinks New Zealand is seriously off the rails on any of those issues, it should lift its gaze from its navel to the wider world. You can find many nations where businesses do better with worse governments. That said, there's always room for improvements. But those take time and even then the success of policies depends on how businesses then use the national workforce.

So it is down to business. If New Zealand is to prosper, businesses have to make the shift from being labour intensive to capital intensive. That is the only way they will improve their technology, sophistication of their products and the wages they can afford to pay. That's the nub of the productivity debate. That's why the Budget cut the corporate tax rate to 30% and offered a raft of other incentives to those companies that have a bit of ambition and plan to invest in their future and the country's.

Superannuation was another crashing, ill-formed and self-serving contradiction revealed in the Mood of the Boardroom survey. On one hand, 82% of respondents supported compulsory superannuation. But on the other hand, they see it as somebody else's problem. Asked before the Budget, only 50% of large companies and 15% of small and medium companies said they would contribute to a super plan.   Who do they think is going to pay for super? Don't they know that Australian employers pay 9% of their wage bills into employees' compulsory super plans? Don't they know that's the main reason why Australia has $A1000 ($NZ1122) billion of pension assets so it can afford to buy up lots of companies here?

It is just as well the government used the Budget to spring compulsory KiwiSaver contributions on employers. Given businesses' desire to push the bill on to somebody else, the talks would have ground on for years, even as the country's hopeless dis-savings record (that is, the rapid accumulation of household debt) went from chronic to catastrophic.

Tax cuts were another topic surveyed. Business strongly supports personal tax cuts. At first glance, it seems so noble to put their staff first. The truth, though, is that quite a few employers hope that they could skip a wage rise or two if taxes were cut. And again the illogicality, the sheer ignorance, is a worry. Don't businesses understand personal tax cuts will increase pressure on spending, house prices, imports, interest rates, the dollar and the current account deficit?   So, they argue, government should cut spending instead to relieve the pressure. OK, so what will they give up from the long list that runs from roads, apprentices and research to universities, export services and lots of other essential investments in economic capability and growth?

Amazingly, National is just as irresponsible. The day after the Budget it voted against cutting the corporate tax rate. The vote was on that alone, not the whole Budget. Asked to explain the party's curious decision, John Key said National's top priority was personal not business tax cuts. And this is the party that business thinks will deliver what it needs to unleash its potential?

What business really needs is a hefty slug of reality and responsibility. Not much was evident in the survey. The views were particularly parochial. Apart from a few references to falling behind Australia and oil prices being their greatest international worry, there was scant evidence the chief executives had much knowledge or interest in what was going on out in the world.

Their views on climate change were particularly revealing. To the question, "Are you sufficiently convinced the science of climate change is accurate and robust?", 72% answered "no" or "unsure".  They would have answered "yes" if they had taken even passing interest in the latest, well-publicised reports from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal," it said. "Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations." By the way, "very likely" has a precise scientific definition of 90% likelihood and anthropogenic means human activity is the cause.  This large majority of climate deniers prove to be equally muddled on related issues. Although they don't believe the science, 82% believe that New Zealand should prepare for a carbon-constrained future anyway. In addition, 64% don't believe or are unsure that the country has enough electricity to fuel business growth. But 93% don't believe power prices should be increased. That's nonsense. There's no way we can increase electricity capacity, either in non-carbon ways like wind or carbon ways like coal, without putting up the price.

Quite simply, business wants lots of things gifted to them - a break on climate policies, more infrastructure, employee tax cuts, superannuation, roads and electricity to name but a few. It is not prepared to pay for them. For example, 52% of respondents want the government to invest in broadband but then they reject by strong majorities the three ways it could happen.  In stark contrast, what would a constructive corporate culture look like? Business leaders would be ambitious, confident about themselves and the country, excited about New Zealand's opportunities in the world, ready to shoulder a fair share of the responsibility and investment; be strategic, well-researched and deeply analytical.

There are some. The search is on for more. Nominations, please, to oram@clear. net.nz